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The Daily Grind: Do you want realism or awesome?
I realize that any discussion of realism in MMOs can quickly devolve into absurdity, but bear with me. I was recently involved in a discussion between some guildies of mine who were extolling the virtues of Tribes: Ascend over more realistic FPS games. "It's the jetpacks," they told me. In a realism-driven FPS, there's an emphasis on physics and gravity, but in Tribes, it's all about the jetpacks and learning how to fight effectively while using one. The fun of a game like that is in how awesome it is to break realism, not in how true-to-life it might be. Pure MMOs are no different. Many games make compromises along the spectrum of reality, especially when it comes to travel: In some games, we're grounded, forced to use a horse or our own two feet to make our way across the world; in others, we teleport via magical contraptions or leap tall buildings in a single bound. So riddle me this: When it boils down to it, what do you prefer to be the guiding principle of your MMOs -- realism or awesome? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
The Daily Grind: Are you obsessed with jumping?
I suspect that if you polled players about their biggest Guild Wars pet peeves, the lack of a jump ability would be toward the top. The game world just isn't built with a Z-axis. Even if you could jump, there'd be nowhere to go. ArenaNet has been quick to assure fans that the sequel will in fact have jumping. Jumping! You'd think there were no other important mechanics, like crafting or travel or guilds! Besides, if you build your world for jumping, you also build your world for falling... like off of City of Heroes' tall buildings or those obnoxious Kelethin tree platforms in EverQuest (seriously, learn2railings, Wood Elves!). Still we crave our spacebar jumping, so much that we demand it even in 2-D sidescrolling crafting sandboxes like Glitch (where jumping neither decreases aggro nor makes you harder to target in PvP, sadly). Are you one of those obsessed with jumping in MMOs, and if so, why? Is it a nervous twitch? A way to immerse yourself in the gameworld? Do you jump for attention? Or is jumping merely shorthand for an interactive three-axis world? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
Massively Hands-on: The first five levels of Champions Online Part 2
Yep, that's right, you get your travel power at the end of Champions Online's tutorial. Jet Boots is very cool, and will please many an Iron Man fan -- myself included -- right down to the hands and feet pointing forward to stop animation. For Jet Boots, you'll hold 'T' to charge up your bar.
